A child forced to endure racist abuse
MY FAMILY is white. However, my little brother, whom we adopted when he was 4 years old, is Black. He entered into the sixth grade at Timberstone Junior High School this year. Timberstone is a predominately white, middle-class school in the Toledo, Ohio, suburb of Sylvania.
Damon has been the target of racist verbal assaults multiple times, both at Timberstone and at his previous elementary school. Unfortunately, this year has multiplied the intensity with which the threats and racist slurs have been hurled at him.
It started when two boys--both larger, white eighth-graders who both live across the street--began a campaign of harassment against my brother. Comments like "Go back to Africa" and "I'll make you my slave" were followed by a slew of racial slurs.
My brother has been forced to endure this type of disgusting racism for months. The white administration at the school has decided to do absolutely nothing about it. Comments such as "Boys will be boys" and claims that Damon brought these insults upon himself (how, I wonder, can a sixth grade child bring such disgusting racism upon himself?) became frequent from the vice principal who deals with disciplinary problems.
One day, my brother came off the bus crying. These two boys had threatened to stab my brother at the end of the year. Once again, we voiced complaints to the administration, and nothing was done. Essentially, they claimed that the threats were not serious enough. It ended up that other concerned parents who heard about the threats and the incidents called in, and finally, after weeks, the administration decided to remove one of the kids from school for three days.
The fact of the matter, however, is that if Damon had threatened either of these white children like that, he would probably have been expelled or seriously punished at the first hint of aggression. Of course, since the tables were turned, these white children were given the "benefit of the doubt," and nothing was done, despite the fact that they were verbally attacking my brother, day in and day out, both in school and on the bus.
Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Throughout elementary school, Damon has had racial slurs used against him. Last year, a white girl told him she's glad she didn't look like him because he "looked like dirt."
It is not just my brother, however. A foreign exchange student came to Southview High School from Ecuador in 2005, and on his first day of class, he had a sign posted on his back that said, "Deport me." Those of Middle Eastern descent are often times harassed, and last year, a Muslim school here was badly vandalized and spray-painted with racist propaganda.
I contacted the head of the local NAACP on the University of Toledo campus, and he informed me that multiple incidents of racism, both from students and the administration, are frequent in Toledo public schools, and suggested that other students may be interested in getting involved in this case.
This type of racism is even more common outside of the schools. For instance, a couple years ago, a Black man named Jeffery Turner was Tasered to death by police (who Tasered Turner nine times), and nothing came of the case. Toledo was also home to the famous protests against the neo-Nazis back in 2005.
This type of racism is very serious, and for school administrators to ignore it sends a message that such racism is accepted and tolerated.
The inaction of the school systems here, and especially certain individuals within that system, have facilitated these type of racist attacks. They must be stopped, and we, as a community, must take charge to stop them.
Derek Ide, Toledo, Ohio
